One of the biggest pitching stories of the first half of 2017 was Alex Wood’s breakout. Although the seeds were sown in his injury-shortened 2016 campaign, Wood finally looked like he was ready to insert his name among the better starters in the league. The Dodgers and Wood worked together to raise his arm slot after his acquisition from the Braves, which caused a big velocity spike and a large increase in strikeouts.

At the All-Star break in 2017, Wood had the sixth-highest strikeout rate among pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched. He posted the second-highest ground-ball rate among the same group of pitchers, and that resulted in the second-best adjusted ERA. The Dodgers were hyper-protective of Wood’s pitch count, never letting him throw more than 100 in the first half. But when he was pitching, he looked like one of the best starters in baseball.

However, as the 2017 season wore, on, Wood’s velocity began to leave him: